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| published Tuesday, January 30, 2007 |
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Ask anyone around the statehouse this week and they’ll tell you that the 2007 session is getting off to a slow start. Every year you hear the same thing because this is the time in between. Most committees are reviewing rules or hearing presentations. Even the bills that are getting hearings are pretty routine—the real barnburners haven’t come up yet. And yet, while every year it seems a bit slow, 2007 may be off to the slowest start in awhile. By the end of last week only 61 bills had been introduced as compared to 67 last year at this time and as many as 95 in 2003. Even more telling: last year 500 pieces of legislation had been prepared at the end of the second week. This year only 388 pieces of legislation were in the hopper.
Seems like every week oughta be Education Week. This week is education week around the Statehouse because all of the education institutions from kindergarten through higher education present their budgets at the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee. On Tuesday, the presidents of all of the state’s colleges and universities proposed a 13% increase in overall budgets—about $20 million more than requested by Governor Butch Otter. Much of the difference between the budgets is in faculty pay, which the presidents argue is needed to maintain competitive with other schools in the region. Faculty at Washington State, for example, get paid on average 20% more than faculty at U of I. The presidents also supported the $38 million request in Otter’s budget for needs based scholarships.
Idaho’s newly elected State Superintendent of Schools, Tom Luna, came in with substantially different budget priorities than the governor although he characterized their difference as being “on the same page but not the same paragraph.” Luna’s budget provides about $12 million less than Otter’s for teacher salaries. It also contains about $25 million in classroom enhancements including funding for textbooks, classroom supplies and “concurrent enrollment” opportunities so students can get college credits while they are in high school. Much of the funding for these initiatives requires a local match, which some districts fear will eat up the small amount of discretionary money they have. So much for local control. While Luna was pretty restrained in his support for “school choice” initiatives, like vouchers, he did reveal his apparent bias for privatizing schools. In response to a question about paying for the concurrent enrollment initiative, Luna earnestly told Finance Chair Dean Cameron that “we have to be careful about increasing the government dole.”
. Seems like the right wing lobby groups like Bryan Fisher’s Idaho Values Alliance and David Ripley’s Idaho Chooses Life, have an opinion on just about everything. Still I was surprised to see that Idaho Chooses Life’s website had a vitriolic editorial against public financing of elections, which was introduced this week as SB1037, The Idaho Fair Elections Act. The editorial’s rant is classic: “How foolish we Idahoans have been not to elect more liberals! What other explanation could there be for the pathetic history of Democrats in Idaho? If not their message and pro-abortion values – then there must be something wrong with the process!” Although the editorial writes this reform off as a liberal and Democratic plot, it fails to mention that where the Fair and Clean election systems are in place, Republicans, Democrats and Independents take advantage of it. In fact in Maine, almost 90% of the Legislature was elected using the Clean Money system. A hearing on SB1037, the Idaho Fair Elections Act will be held Friday February 2nd beginning at 8 a.m. at the Senate State Affairs Committee.
Looks like the show down between the Governor and Legislative leadership was averted today when they struck a compromise to build one story instead of two-story underground wings. This apparently placated the Governor who was concerned about cost over runs, and satisfied the need for additional public hearing space. The second floor had been dedicated to legislative offices, which too are in short supply. Offices can probably be developed in the old Ada County courthouse or federal post office that the state now owns. Most importantly, the compromise breaks a logjam that has been holding up other critical legislation.
And I am not the only one. Today the House Health and Welfare Committee unanimously rejected the rule that would have made low income students ineligible for child care assistance after 2 years. In justifying the rule, the Department’s spokesperson said that “Idaho’s welfare reform was never intended as a college scholarship program. [Allowing people to get child care assistance for 4 years] does not reflect Idaho’s welfare reform philosophy.” The proposed rule would have increased the income eligibility guidelines which have not changed since 1998. People making anything over $8.47 per hour are ineligible for the program. This does need to be changed but not at the expense of single moms who are trying to get ahead by going to college.
. House Revenue and Taxation Committee Chair, Dennis Lake of Blackfoot called for all bills dealing with the grocery tax to be submitted to him by mid-week. He now expects to see 3 or 4 bills including one to take the sales tax off of food completely in one year as proposed by Minority Leader, Wendy Jaquet of Ketchum, one to phase it out as proposed by Lt. Governor Jim Risch and another that would reform the grocery tax credit as proposed by Governor Butch Otter. We have been most intrigued by the Otter bill since it targets the tax break to families with incomes up to $50,000 who are most affected by rising food costs and sales tax. There has been a fair amount of grumbling about Otter’s approach from conservatives who seem to dislike using the tax code to help moderate and low income families but have shown little resistance to corporate breaks. We expect to see the bills introduced by the middle of next week.
? Those of you who have been reading this little rag for awhile know that we have advocated for tax accountability for a number of years. We think it’s a good idea for tax breaks to be justified on a regular basis to make sure they are actually achieving the goals they were meant to achieve such as more jobs, improved schools and so on. Apparently now the House and Senate tax leaders have come to an agreement that they will not support any new tax exemptions or credits until a system of review is put into place. This is a good thing. A legis-lative committee set up to review the exemptions a few years ago foundered before it got started when business lobbyists vigorously rejected any changes in our apparently perfect tax system. Our only concern is that the change in the grocery tax to benefit moderate income families not be a victim of the need to hold corporations accountable.
. The House Environment, Energy and Technology Committee approved a rule this week opting Idaho out of the Clean Air Act Mercury Cap and Trade Rule. At least for now this will help block construction of coal fired power plants in Idaho.
From the Ridenbaugh Press: Stockholders of Micron, Idaho’s largest business and private employer, adopted language banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. This was an initiative prompted by the managers of the pension funds of New York City, which are major Micron stock-holders, and the proposal was approved by more than 55% of the shares.
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